


Ghostbusters Femslash Ficlets

by Ilthit



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, Microfic, Wordcount: 100-1.000, Wordcount: 50-100
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2019-10-12 03:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17459603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/pseuds/Ilthit
Summary: Originally written for various DW ficlet challenge communities, mainly Femslashficlets. Ratings vary from General Audiences to Mature.





	1. You Said It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin/Holtzmann, rated general audiences

Erin spun to face Holtzmann. She was used to getting teased, but she was trying to _work_ here. “Jillian...”

“Jillian.”

“Please stop mimicking me.”

“Please stop mimicking me.”

Erin stomped her foot. “You won’t get into my head like this.”

“You won’t get into my pants like this.”

“What?”

“What?”


	2. "Break" Has Two Meanings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby/Holtzmann, rated mature

"Okay, all right, honey, that's really lovely, but I'm trying to balance this magnetic field, so if you could just-- Okay... Mm. All right. Holtzmann. Baby. You know I can't-- Oh, Fuck me. All right, all right, just let me put this-- Honey...! Oh fuck, that feels good. Oh, God. Jesus. Yes!..."

It wasn't silence that descended upon the lab, but no more words were said for some time. Instead, the space was filled with the screeching of chair legs, air passing through rapidly working lungs, and eventually a crash or two.

"You're paying for that," said Abby, kicking a piece of bent metal out from under her leg. She'd have to start the experiment all over again, but she could be mad about that later.

"I'll just steal one from the chem department."

"I knew there was a reason I loved you."


	3. Sneakers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby/Erin, general audiences
> 
> Warning: Queer uses as a slur.

Calculations whizzed through Erin’s head. She’d like to have them laid out in her notebook to be sure, but at least in her mind’s neatly organized grid they seemed to hold up. She barely looked at where she was going as she clutched her schoolbag and slugged towards school. A notebook and Abby, that’s what she needed. That’s what kept her going.  
  
Someone pushed her from behind. “Hey! I said watch your step, queer.” Erin stumbed, regained her feet and hurried on faster, chased by laughter. At least her sneakers were good for running. Maybe someday she could have shoes that didn’t have to be good for running.   
  
“I saw,” said Abby when they found each other in the press of bodies at the doors. “Bastards. That Jenny Kildare skank thinks Jupiter is a star. Your worth ten of her. Did you think about what we talked about last time?”   
  
Erin found her voice with some effort; her smile had already returned. “Yeah. Abby, I think you were right. The math works out.”  
  
Abby squealed and hugged her. “Let’s cut class and go hang out in the library.”  
  
“I have Chemistry.”  
  
“I thought it was English.”  
  
“No, that’s Tuesdays.”  
  
“Drat. Okay, meet me at lunch. And bring a notebook!”  
  
Lunch was a sandwich scarfed down in a quiet nook of the library, hidden behind bookshelves so Mrs Kent wouldn’t see. “The difficult thing to prove is consciousness survival,” Erin whispered. “We need to prove a mind is not just chemicals and electricity.”  
  
“Or that the processes of a mind can and are recreated on the level of atomic interactions outside of the known chemical processes of carbon-based life.”  
  
Erin leaned her chin in her hand and tapped her notebook with a pencil. “I think we’ve proven the _can_ , but not the _do_.”   
  
“For that, we need money. And equipment.”  
  
Erin threw her pen down and sat back in a sulk. “You need to be a grown-up to have all that.”  
  
Abby reached over and clasped Erin’s hand in her own. “Honey, we’re gonna grow up. We’re gonna get there. And one day, we’ll be the scientists to prove the _do_. I guarantee it.”  
  
Erin looked down at their joined hands, feeling the warmth of pleasure creep up from her neck to her cheeks. “You can’t _guarantee_ \--”  
  
“I absolutely can and I do. We’re brilliant, and we’re _right_. That’s all you need.”  
  
“I--” Her mouth wanted to say something but her throat closed upon it. She gazed helplessly up at Abby’s shining eyes, her plump pretty beloved face, and the shiver in her heart lit up her chest, tingled all the way down her legs. Abby grinned.   
  
_Watch your step, queer._  
  
The feeling got sucked down into some deep dark hole and a heavy lid stamped down upon it. Erin coughed, chugged her orange juice, and closed the notebook. “I, um… I’ll write these out after class. I gotta go. I’ll be late.”  
  
“Wait, Erin! We still have ten minutes.”  
  
“I don’t want to miss this one.” She stuffed the notebook and pencil in her bag and stood to go.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Um. English.”  
  
She ran away, her sneakers squeaking on the tiling.


	4. Physics Is Easier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin/Patty, rated teen

“Okay, now you’re winding me up. Nobody wants to hear about the history of Chinese theater in New York.”  
  
“I do,” said Erin and scooted closer on the bench. Patty had noticed a change in her ever since Kevin had left for that wildlife safari presenter gig. It was like she needed somewhere else to stuff her awkward now that its primary conduit was gone. If she didn’t know Erin was into boys…  
  
Whoa. There was her mistake. She inclined her head. “Sweetie. Are you flirting with me?”  
  
Erin scooted back twice as fast as she’d scooted in. “What? No! Ahahaha.” She actually _said_ ‘ahahaha’. That woman was a mess.  
  
Patty leaned her head on her hand. “That’s sweet. Can’t blame you. You’ve had all this in your face every day.” She gestured to her pink sequined retro 80s drop-shoulder shirt.  
  
“Ahahaahaaa.”  
  
“Hey, you guys up there?” came Abby’s voice, followed by the sound of her boots on the staircase up. “We’ve got that interview with the New York Paranormal Research Society today, remember?”  
  
“Hold on one damn moment!” Patty shouted in the general direction of the stairwell. “Can’t a person finish a cup of coffee around here?” Just as the boots got closer, she turned to Erin, grinned, leaned over, and whispered something filthy in her ear.  
  
“What’s wrong with Erin?” asked Abby as she poked her head out of the stairwell.  
  
“Clogged chutes,” Patty deadpanned. “So, interview?”


	5. Bubbly Wine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin/Patty, rated teen

There was a lump—no, a rock—in Erin’s throat, its jagged edges pressing into her every time she tried to speak. She was aware of oscillating, and stopped herself. Nobody liked an oscillator. But Patty had been kind to her, made room for her in the car, rescued her out of a verbal misstep at the NYPRA interview, brought her a glass of bubbly wine. Patty didn’t mind. She took a deep breath and swallowed the lump down. “I--”  
  
“You were wondering if I meant what I said.”  
  
Erin blinked at her, and all her preparatory work crashed into a heap.  
  
They were in a dark corner of the NYPRA’s already perpetually underlit social room while Abby debated loudly with the president about the value of using mythology as a starting point on forming preliminary hypotheses. Wherever Holtzmann was, she was somebody else’s problem right now. Erin cocked her head, cradled her bubbly wine and gazed up at Patty, for once allowing some of what she felt show in her eyes. But, of course, it was rather dark.  
  
She was just so… strong. Confident. Big. Her fingers. Her lips. The way her voice dipped low when she leaned close to you.  
  
Erin liked boys that were more beautiful than life and men who would look right standing beside her in an Ikea catalogue. Women, though. Women were complex and forbidden and every detail of them was stunning. She shouldn’t be looking at women for too long.  
  
“Well?” Erin asked, crossing her arms and managing not to even spill the wine.  
  
Patty leaned closer, and fuck, her voice made Erin’s belly turn to a hot puddle. “One way to find out.”


	6. Residual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby/Erin, PG

Erin Gilbert.

Abby couldn’t say she’d ever put her behind. You don’t put behind the co-author of your seminal work, even if it was a seminal work that, in retrospect, needs a lot of retooling for style. The science had always been solid. Everything she’d done since then was refine the central theory that she’d cooked up with Erin during those sweaty school lunches in the library, or playing hooky from gym. Ever since they’d first met, her whole life had been all about Erin Gilbert.

But you gotta let people go. Her mom had told her that, and she’d seen it often enough. Erin never wanted to be a spooky ghost girl. She wanted to be on the cheer squad, for Christ’s sake. She wanted everyone to look at her and love her, just so she’d feel good enough.

Gotta let her go. Gotta let people be who they are, even when they’re wrong and hurting themselves for no reason. Gotta keep going, for your own heart’s sake.

It’s not a love story, except it is. It totally is. And now Erin fucking Gilbert is walking through her door, after all this time. But she moved on.

You gotta.


	7. Is It Fall Yet In New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby/Patty, G

Walking through Central Park with Patty was a revelation. Really, walking just about anywhere in New York with Patty was. Abby had a notebook in her hand and was scribbling down references to look up. “This is where most lethal muggings have happened,” said Patty, pointing underneath a bridge. “They say it’s because here is a good place to get a jump on a runner, but it’s in sight of the road, you gotta keep it quick and quiet. And there--” she pointed at a range of tall bushes by the water, “--is where they dump the bodies.”

“So this whole stretch between is potential haunting ground.” Abby drew a quick sketch and marked down the GPS from her phone, perched precariously on her open notebook.

“Absolutely. Hey, Abs.”

“Hmm?”

“You ever think about anything but ghosts?”

Abby pushed her glasses up her nose and looked up at the other woman. “Sure. Just not for long. You know me, Patty.”

“How about for an hour and a half? There’s a documentary matinee just down the street from here.”

Abby felt her cheeks dimple; the smile had been quite involuntary. “Are you asking me for a date? Sure.”

“...I didn’t say it was a date.”

“You didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“...And you said yes.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

The women smiled at each other. Abby recognized that little flutter in the bottom of her belly. Nothing to do but go with it. She always had.

“All right, all right. Just hold on.” Patty plucked a late-blooming rose from a bush you definitely weren’t allowed to pick flowers from and put it behind Abby’s ear. “Now it’s official.”

“Ow—that’s sweet, but—ow.”

They detangled the thorns from Abby’s hair and Patty got her an ice cream as an apology.


	8. First Mornings After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patty/Abby, PG-13

“Mmm.” Patty rolled on her back, her foot hitting the end of an unfamiliar bed. A gentle snore, like a wooden ball rolling around in a plastic bowl, emanated from the warm heap of woman next to her.

First morning afters. God. She could write a book on those. A lot of them had come with regrets. Maybe the guy hadn’t been as much of a sex god as he’d claimed. Maybe a part of her knew the girl would be coming back later that day with a moving truck and they’d have to have a Conversation. Sometimes she’d be the one who’d failed some expectation neither of them had discussed before jumping into bed, or told lies she’d have to face up to. None of that was fun.

But then sometimes it all worked out great. You could wake up next to someone who would still be your friend as the sun rose high.

Abby’s makeup was smeared over her face, that hair with the white peeking out from under the dye-job sticking in every direction. Patty could remember what had smeared that lipstick and she smiled at the absolute mess she’d made. Fuck. Yeah. They’d be all right.


	9. On the (Nut) Job

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patty/Holtzmann, PG

“You’re crazy,“ said Patty. Holtzmann’s laughter was somewhere between a giggle and a cackle. “I’m dating a crazy mad scientist.”

Her girlfriend said nothing, just slotted a new ray-gun—don’t tell her they weren’t ray-guns—to the particle accelerator in Patty’s backpack and did a thumb spin on her own. “You like it.” She grinned. “Behind you.”

Patty spun around and blasted a five-strand ray at the green oozing fucker coming at them from the abandoned hallway. Holtzmann nuzzled her chin on Patty’s shoulder and added her two streams into the mix. Ectoplasm covered the walls, leaving the carpeting smouldering.


	10. Slide Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holtzmann/Patty, PG

Turns out so long as there aren’t any villains around trying to bring forth the apocalypse, there are limited job opportunities for ghost hunters. There’s reality TV, of course, or children’s birthday parties, or radio appearances on some of the more out-there channels. Didn’t matter how many ghosts flooded the streets of New York last year, the mainstream scientific community was still a decade from accepting the reality of life after death. Abby’s words.

They keep on going on, all the same. They still have the firehouse and all the equipment they got under the table from the city. Abby and Erin are happy so long as they can chase a rumour of a ghost somewhere in New Jersey or spend hours going through mathematics Patty won’t even try to understand. Nobody notices what it’s doing to Holtzmann. Nobody but Patty, who’s kinda used to noticing her girlfriend.

“You don’t have to pull that magical unstable genius pixie girl routine with me, honey,” she tells her one day she catches her pretending again, after another long day of finetuning equipment they can’t add to. “I know you’ve been blowing up trash cans again.” 

Holtzmann groans and slumps back against the breakroom table. “I’m bored.”

“I know, honey. It sucks.”

Holtzmann’s also the only one of them that knows Patty’s picking up evening shifts in the underground again. Rent needs paying on her flat, even if it doesn’t on the firehouse. They’re all sliding back into normality. It’s not easy, not when you’ve spent some time being awesome. Especially for someone like Holtzmann. She’s got fire under her heels and could go off at any moment. It’s what Patty loves about her, what makes her so fucking amazing in bed. But it means… Patty’s not sure what it means. Not a dog and a white picket fence, anyway.

Patty won’t say, ‘something will turn up’, like Erin does. “You’ll think of something. It’s in your nature.”

Holtzmann lifts her head from the table and grins, bright like an atomic dawn. It was the right thing to say, it seems. Or the wrong, like aiming a loaded cannon at a problem. But, hey. At least she’s smiling.


	11. Nobody Told Her About the Program

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erin/Holtzmann, G

Erin was still smiling down at the lights of New York after Abby’d loudly declared pizza had arrived, and fuck Chinese, specifying she meant Chinese takeout, not Chinese people. Her and Patty’s voices diminished down into the staircase and she was alone; or so she thought.

“So, how’s it feel to be popular?”

Erin jumped as Jillian Holtzmann slid up the railing to lean over right next to her, that damn know-it -all smile plastered on her face. In the neon-dotted dark her pale hair shone like a beacon.

“Pretty good.” Erin’s smile returned and she hugged her arms to herself. “I know it shouldn’t matter. It’s just… It’s nice to be liked.”

“You’ve got some damage, haven’t you.”

“I do not!”

“They won’t like you for long, you know. That’s why it doesn’t matter.” There was a frown between Holtzmann’s eyebrows, as if she was pushing herself to talk about... emotions. That was… kinda sweet. “You gotta like you. You gotta like your life.”

“Like you?”

A smile spread on Holtzmann’s lips, tugging one side up. “That too.”

“What?”

“Come on, Gilbert. Get with the program.”

“What—What’s the program?”

“Shh,” said Holtzmann and slid up even closer, making Erin’s heart beat a staccato of fear-mixed excitement. “I’ll show you.”


	12. Seeking Genius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby &/ Holtzmann (bring your preferred goggles), G

”Do you believe in ghosts, apparitions, or so-called supernatural phenomena?” Abby leaned over the university cafeteria table she’d loaned for her lab assistant interviews.

Jillian Holtzmann was rocking her chair back, one combat boot on the edge of the table, arms crossed. Like a trash lesbian who’d never been to a job interview before. Who the hell paid for her education? Still, Abby couldn’t be too picky, and the lesbian part was a bonus. Abby was partial to the odd dude, but she’d had it with heteros as lab partners. Too much sexist tension.

”Does it get me the job if I do?”

”No,” said Abby, her mouth making a moue. ”Are you willing to try to prove the impossible?”

”Sure.”

”Roam around decrepit old buildings looking for traces of psionic energy?”

”Why not?”

”Experiment with potentially unstable particles illegally and with a limited budget?” She winced apologetically even as the words left her mouth.

The boot came down. The woman leaned over the cafeteria table with a mad grin on her face. ”Absolutely.”

Abby sighed, nodded, and smiled, handing Holtzmann her clipboard like a ceremonial weapon. ”That will get you the job. Welcome on board. Let’s go make history.”


	13. Fated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For trope_bingo round 13 and the prompt "soulmates".

"Trippy." Holtzmann blinked and took off her prescription goggles to polish them for the third time. When she put them back on, she blinked rapidly again, then took them off again to rub her eyes. "Whoo! It's like being back in college."

"So you see ley-lines now?"

Erin tried to discreetly shine her little spotlight in Holtzmann's eyes, looking for that telltale glow of ectoplasm, but Abby slapped her hand away. “Leave that alone. She’s already seeing lights.”

It had been less than three hours since their encounter with the Absinthe Angel, as Patty had dubbed the vicious green thing with four wings and about thirty eyes. It had been a close-run thing, but they’d got it in a box with the rest of the creepy-crawlies in that abandoned church—but not before it had slimed Holtzmann. Three showers later, her butt was slime-free, but her vision had only been returning in stops and starts ever since. Everything… glowed. Everything smelled like sunlight. All the shadows were sleeping.

Yeah, pretty much exactly like college.

Erin reluctantly put the light away. “But you do, don’t you? Abby, think about it. No more GPS signal issues.”

"There are no ley-lines coming through the HQ, Erin. Hey, Holtzy. Wanna look out the window?"

"I'm seeing something." Holtzmann stared at the space between her two colleagues.

"What?" Erin and Abby both turned around, but the only thing behind them was Patty eating a sandwich.

"What?" Patty mimicked, swallowing. "I'm on break, ladies. You want my encyclopedic knowledge of trivia, you gotta wait. Told ya. Blood sugar issues."

"You guys, I don't know how to put this..." Holtzmann said, tracing the glowing, floating red thread connecting Erin and Abby. It shied away from her finger like a living thing. "How much anime have you seen?"


End file.
